The linguocultural concept of 疫/pandemic/пaндeмия in Chinese, English, and Russian linguistic consciousness

Abstract

Background

As a major public health event, the pandemic has been widely discussed across various academic disciplines. In the field of humanities, most pandemic-related studies use introspective methods such as description and interpretation, indicating to some extent subjective and one-sided conclusions. In this paper, pandemic-related linguistic information and linguistic big data serve as research materials. Based on the theory of linguocultural concepts, the study employed natural language processing methods such as the analysis of word frequency and collocation co-occurrence to conduct an in-depth empirical study of 疫/pandemic/пaндeмия as a linguocultural concept in Chinese, English, and Russian linguistic consciousness from diachronic and synchronic perspectives.

Methods

Based on the basic linguocultural theories, this study provides a comprehensive interpretation of the etymological data on the conceptual words 疫/pandemic/пaндeмия, its lexical interpretation, and high-frequency words and co-occurring collocations related to the pandemic in Chinese, English, and Russian text corpora in Sketch Engine. The paper also analyzes reports from the mainstream media (People’s Daily Online, BBC, and TASS) to depict and explain in detail the aspects of linguocultural concepts. The historical trends of the pandemic-related concepts in the three languages were examined by observing word frequency changes through Google Book Viewer. This hybrid empirical research framework, which combines cultural concepts with linguistic big data technology, made it possible to explore the content of linguocultural concepts in a more objective, comprehensive, and profound way.

Results

The study revealed that: 1) In terms of etymology, the Chinese character 疫(yi, pandemic) implies a belief that pandemics were created by ghosts and gods to render people immobile. The character 疫(yi, pandemic) is also related to the concept of a fight. The English and Russian analogues (pandemic/пaндeмия) denote the same phenomenon: a disease that spreads widely among the whole population. 2) For more than 100 years since the twentieth century, pandemics have been a more significant part of Chinese consciousness than they have been in English and Russian cultures. 3) During the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020–2023, the total number of news reports on 疫 (yi, pandemic) in Chinese was higher than the total number of news reports in English and Russian. This indicates that Chinese media tend to pay much more attention to the COVID-19 pandemic than media in the United Kingdom and Russia in all aspects. 4) China emphasizes the containment of domestic outbreaks through stringent, proactive, and comprehensive measures, including quarantine protocols, extensive testing campaigns, and evidence-based treatment strategies. On the contrary, the United Kingdom and Russia are more concerned with the global outcomes of the pandemic.

Conclusions

The present study objectively and comprehensively examined the similarities and differences in the perception of and response to the pandemic as a major health event in the Chinese, English, and Russian linguistic consciousness. This paper greatly contributes to the body of research in the field of humanities, broadening the scope of studies on public health events. The findings presented in this paper have relevance at both the theoretical and methodological levels. This study provides a linguistic foundation for cross-cultural public heath communication and also holds practical significance for promoting international healthcare cooperation.

Introduction

As a fundamental form of thinking, a concept reflects the general and essential characteristics of objective things. On the other hand, a concept is a distinct cognitive category that plays a crucial role in the process of cognition and interpretation of the world. Concepts encompass the mental representations that categorize and denote various phenomena, including abstract ideas, objects, events, or experiences [1]. Scholars have examined the relevant aspects of concepts within the context of the humanities, such as linguistics, cognitive science, culture, ethnography, and sociology. These various approaches to understanding the notion of concepts rest on a common linguo-philosophical foundation, the essence of which is the idea that the Saussurean dichotomy between langue and parole (language and speech) is now understood as a dichotomy between linguistic consciousness and communicative behavior. According to Eric Hawkins, a British scholar [2], language awareness refers to “the knowledge of the cultural and social factors behind language.”

Western scholars have studied concepts from various disciplinary perspectives, including philosophy [3], psychology [4], history [5], and ethnology [6]. In the field of linguistics, researchers have explored numerous issues related to concepts and their meanings, such as the categorization and construction of concepts and the relationship between concepts and metaphors. Leonard Talmy, an American cognitive linguist, suggests that language is a cognitive system that is interrelated with other major cognitive systems such as the perceptual system, perception in general or in its several modalities (reasoning—inferencing—understanding system; affect; a cognitive system for cultural structure; motor control). Moreover, language itself has a distinctive schematic system [7].

In the Russian academic community, the study of concepts through language can be broadly categorized into two main directions: cognitive-focused and cultural-focused approaches. As a linguocognitive phenomenon, a concept is a unit of “mental or psychic resources of our consciousness and the informational structure that reflects human knowledge and experience; an operational content unit of memory, mental lexicon, conceptual system and language of the brain (lingua mentalis), the whole world picture reflected in the human psyche” [8]. Sternin recognizes a certain analogy between the structure of mental formations and the semantic system of language [9].

In linguocultural terms, a concept is recognized as a basic unit of culture, its essence: “The structure of a concept includes everything that makes it a fact of culture – the original form (etymology); history compressed to the main features of the content; contemporary associations; evaluations, etc.” [10]. When a concept is externally expressed through language to convey objective meanings, it is known as a linguocultural concept. Linguocultural concepts reflect and record the culturally constructed and generated relationship between human subjective perception and real phenomena. Such concepts express the conceptual content of human cultural wisdom, spiritual thought, etc. constructed around a conceptualized phenomenon and presented in the relevant cultural discourse. These contents are distributed in all aspects of human social activities and national spiritual life, and express the typical characteristics and attributes of cultural concepts in specific languages and cultures.

Both the linguocognitive and linguocultural perspectives agree that concepts can be projected at all levels of language: etymology, lexical meanings, word combinations, idioms, various types of texts, grammatical structures, and even at the level of speech. Likhachevargued that concepts are “some substitutions of meanings, some ‘substitutes’ hidden in the text, some ‘potencies’ of meanings that facilitate communication and are closely related to a person and their national, cultural, professional, age and other experience” [11]. On the other hand, the ethnocultural and sociocultural specificity of a concept goes beyond the linguistic meanings, which label, express, and describe the concept. With regard to the cultural aspect of a concept, language structures reflect cultural beliefs, values, traditions, stereotypes, and other culturally determined elements [12]. Thus, concepts reveal how language reflects cultural meanings and is perceived in the context of a particular culture. By studying the cultural aspect of a concept in linguistics, it is possible to understand how language expressions denote the cultural characteristics, worldview, and norms of different cultures [13]. It can be stated that language is indispensable for the expression, formation, and interpretation of ideas.

Obviously, language, as a carrier of culture, can be a tool for comprehensively exploring, analyzing, describing, and explaining the origin and evolution of concepts, their content and structure, as well as the national cultural connotations, such as national ideology, morality, and ethics. “New resources of thought can be obtained from linguistics, especially semantics. Exploring culture from a semantic point of view is a perspective that cannot be ignored in cultural analyses” [14]. Cultural information, including the national character, spiritual personality, attitudes to life, ethical principles, and moral principles, is positively reflected in the lexical and semantic features of cultural concepts. A linguistic analysis of word meanings and other related linguistic analyses can be used to examine the dynamics of conceptual changes in values, ideology, and social attitudes that correspond to these cultural concepts.

From a linguistic perspective, the semantics, usage, rhetoric, and other characteristics of cultural concepts deeply reveal the lifestyle and thinking of a particular nation through cultural connotations. The pragmatic phenomena (such as polite phrases, indirect expressions, metaphorical collocations and so forth) give insights into the interpersonal relationship, social hierarchy, and other aspects embedded in cultural concepts. In turn, changes in the grammatical structure and the use of words demonstrate the historical evolution of cultural concepts. Compared to the more macroscopic approach of ethnology and history, linguistic methods provide a more specific and microscopic analysis of cultural concepts.

In particular, linguistic big data and natural language processing technology facilitate the analysis of a large amount of textual data in terms of the frequency, emotional coloring and change patterns of cultural concepts. Word frequency analysis, theme modelling, and other methods can be employed to study the conceptual meanings of words in texts from various sources, such as social media, news reports, and literary works. This approach to empirical research enhances the analysis of cultural concepts by making it more objective, precise, and repeatable. It also facilitates cross-temporal comparisons and the tracking of evolution, providing effective tools for cross-disciplinary integration. Moreover, the use of technology compensates for the limitations of the more abstract and macroscopic traditional research methods in other humanities disciplines with respect to the scale of data and multidimensional analysis.

As a major public health event, the pandemic has deeply affected all aspects of social life, attracting extensive attention from the academic community. Since the global outbreak in 2020, the pandemic has been widely and profoundly discussed in humanities disciplines such as medical humanities, ethics, psychology, cultural studies, and linguistics. Based on the available literature, most studies related to the humanities and the pandemic seem to be introspective in nature, focusing on description and interpretation. The conclusions drawn from such studies may be subjective and one-sided, as they are based on a limited amount of data. Additionally, the patterns of changes in cultural concepts over a longer period of time remain understudied.

Studies addressing the concept of a pandemic in China, Russia, and English-speaking countries have revealed similarities and differences in the perception of this important issue in different cultural contexts. However, researchers tend to focus only on one language, without involving a comparative analysis of Chinese, Russian, and English. A multilingual approach is frequently employed to provide a more complete picture of how the concept of a pandemic is understood across languages and cultures [15].

This paper takes pandemic-related linguistic information and linguistic big data as research materials. Based on the theory of linguocultural concepts, the study employed natural language processing methods such as the analysis of word frequency and collocation co-occurrence in the discourse of media reports. The main goal is to conduct an in-depth and systematic empirical study of the words 疫/pandemic/пaндeмия as cultural concepts in the Chinese, English, and Russian linguistic consciousness at both ephemeral and cross-temporal levels.

Accordingly, the exploration and comparison of the concept of 疫/pandemic/пaндeмия in Chinese, Russian, and English linguistic consciousness are the main objectives of this paper. Although quantitative research methods have limitations in analyzing complex concepts, this study endeavors to overcome those limitations by integrating diverse quantitative and qualitative approaches. The research framework combines word frequency analysis using Google Books Ngram Viewer and Sketch Engine with word collocation and textual analysis. These methods were employed to attain a profound comprehension of how the concept of a pandemic is represented and perceived within these three languages.

Materials and Methods

Materials

This study draws on the following materials to analyze the concept of 疫/pandemic/пaндeмия in the linguistic consciousness of Chinese, Russian, and English:

1. Definitions of the word (concept) 疫/pandemic/пaндeмия in Chinese, English, and Russian etymological and explanatory dictionaries.

2. Google Books Ngram Viewer: The Google Books Corpus comprises a vast collection of digital books covering a variety of genres, disciplines, and languages, with more than 8 million books published since 1800. Google Books NgramViewer is a powerful tool that allows for the visualization and analysis of word frequency patterns in the Google Books corpus [16]. This linguistic resource is considered valuable for the analysis [17]. Using Ngram Viewer, the study explored the historical context and temporal trends related to the term “pandemic” to provide further insights into its usage in different languages.

3. Sketch Engine: Sketch Engine is an online search engine for multilingual corpora. This study utilized English, Russian, and Chinese text corpora [18], which contain billions of characters and provide extensive linguistic data for investigating the concept of pandemic in each language.

4. Self-constructed corpus of reports from Chinese, English, and Russian mainstream news media (People’s Daily Online, BBC, TASS) during the period from January, 2020 to December, 2023. In total, the study examined 15,971 reports (7,334,857 characters) in Chinese, 234 reports (35,736 words) in English, and 2,731 reports (761,148 words) in Russian. The analysis of high-frequency words and high-frequency co-occurring words in the pandemic-related reports revealed the similarities and differences in the Chinese, English, and Russian linguistic consciousness regarding the conceptualization of the word “pandemic” at the levels of content and social practice. This is especially relevant in the context of the novel coronavirus (新冠 xin guan) pandemic, which has recently attracted attention in global discourse analysis.

The etymological analysis of the conceptual word 疫'/pandemic/пандемия reveals cognitive archetypes and cultural genotypes of this concept. Diachronic frequency variations demonstrate evolving societal salience and conceptual-connotative evolution, while collocation analysis delineates the concept's cognitive frameworks and axiological orientations. High-frequency lexical patterns and co-occurrence networks in pandemic discourse uncover the concept's cognitive salience, discursive formations, and ideological encodings—collectively constituting a multidimensional epistemic matrix that traces conceptualization from historical ontogeny to contemporary praxis.

Theoretical framework

This study adheres to the Russian theory of language and cultural concepts, which posits that concepts are preserved in the collective memory of a nation in the form of language symbols. Linguocultural concepts are often embedded in the meanings of words. Structurally, they can be divided horizontally into core and peripheral components in a synchronic context, and vertically (over time) into internal forms, basic real-world hierarchies, and supplementary negative hierarchies. Their content can include categories such as moral and ethical concepts (good and evil, conscience, etc.).

Cultural concepts are considered as units of cognitive operations and collective knowledge leading to the highest spiritual essence [19]). They represent multidimensional formations of meaning, concepts, mental images, and evaluative aspects [20] and display typical characteristics of a nation’s thinking, world perception, and spiritual consciousness [21]. In the linguistic consciousness, a cultural concept is represented as a multidimensional network of meanings that denote various aspects of social life through lexical, phraseological, paremiological units, precedent texts, etiquette formulas, as well as speech and behavioral tactics [22].

The meaning and content of words encompass the rational cognition, imaginative associations, and emotional perceptions of individuals at three levels: concepts, mental images, and evaluative aspects. They reflect the collective philosophy of the language and cultural community and the individual life philosophy of its members. Cultural concepts serve as essential carriers of cultural heritage within a nation [23]. By examining the semantics and linguistic expressions of conceptual words, one can unearth and reconstruct cultural content related to concepts, national consciousness, and spiritual aspects. The theoretical framework, based on various linguistic and intercultural theories, allows this study to analyze the concept of pandemic in the linguistic consciousness of Chinese, Russian and English speakers [24]. Conceptual metaphor theory [25] suggests that abstract concepts are often understood and expressed through metaphorical transfers from concrete domains. By applying this theory, it is possible to explore how the concept of a pandemic is metaphorically understood and expressed in the three languages. In fact, cultural concepts are often subjectively deconstructed through metaphorical mappings of a nation’s cultural consciousness. Through the cultural cognitive operation of conceptual metaphors, these concepts are conceptualized by the cultural subject as closely related to the nation’s socio-cultural history, national mentality, and spiritual traditions. These unique cultural cognitive stereotypes form the basis of cultural concepts.

The task of assessing, measuring, and quantifying linguocultural concepts is a challenging one. For example, concepts related to emotions, values, stereotypes, or behavioral norms may be difficult to study objectively due to their subjective nature [26]. Another difficulty is the interpretation of data collected during the analysis of linguocultural concepts. Since concepts are inherently subjective, their interpretation can vary depending on the perspective of the researcher and the specific context in which they are examined. Furthermore, research may not pay sufficient attention to cultural differences. Some studies analyze terms such as “pandemic” solely from the perspective of language structures and linguistic features, without considering cultural contexts. In turn, other investigations analyze a limited range of cultural variations, leading to simplistic or unreliable conclusions. Another problem is the lack of standardized definitions of concepts in linguistic minds. Linguistic concepts such as “pandemic” can be difficult to formalize and unify. Different cultures may use different terms or have different ways of understanding and expressing certain concepts [27]. Methodological limitations also affect research in this field. Some studies have limitations in terms of methods used for analysis or employ a limited corpus of texts to explore the concept of pandemic. This can lead to insufficiently representative results or less reliable findings [28].

Corpus linguistics provides a methodology for systematic analysis of large amounts of linguistic data [29]. Google Books Corpus and Sketch Engine provide a means to conduct quantitative analyses (word frequency analysis and collocation analysis) and identify patterns and associations related to the concept of pandemic in each language [30]. Intercultural communication theory explores how cultural factors influence communication and meaning-making across cultures [31]. This study examined how cultural values, historical events, and social contexts shape linguistic consciousness and the expression of the concept of pandemic in Chinese, Russian, and English. By combining several theoretical foundations, the study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of how the concept of pandemic is conceptualized, expressed, and communicated in the linguistic consciousness of Chinese, Russian, and English speakers. This interdisciplinary approach was used to explore the relationship between language, culture, and cognition in shaping understanding of global health crises.

Methods

The study uses the basic methodology of Russian linguocultural concept research and adopts a bottom-up hierarchical descriptive approach. This approach includes several stages. The first stage involves analyzing the etymology, dictionary definitions, and distribution of aggregated combinations of words (concepts). The second stage is the cognitive descriptions of the content embedded in words at various levels. The third stage of the analysis addresses the highest level of abstraction in language form, which includes describing various meanings of words and revealing their symbolic and logical images. The final stage involves the overall determination of a concept’s mental images and evaluative aspects, as well as the construction of concept fields. The specific operational steps are as follows (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1.

Linguocultural Analysis of Concepts. Source: Developed by the author

This methodological framework outlines the basic levels of language and cultural studies, as well as the interconnections between them. In the actual process of text analysis, the emphasis can be placed on the specific characteristics of the object under study and the objectives of the research, allowing for the selective application of cultural concepts from the corpus (idioms, literary texts or other). This paper delves into the interpretation of etymological information regarding the conceptual word “pandemic,” dictionary paraphrases, high-frequency words and co-occurring collocations in Sketch Engine, as well as the self-constructed Chinese-English-Russian corpus comprising mainstream media reports from 2020 to 2023 on the pandemic. The historical trends in the use of the word “pandemic” over more than a century were explored through word frequency analysis in Google Books Viewer. This hybrid framework of empirical research on cultural perceptions combined with linguistic big data has the potential to provide more objective and comprehensive data on linguistic and cultural phenomena.

The study conducts a detailed analysis of the frequency of the word “pandemic” [20] in three languages over an extended period. Language dictionaries and other linguistic resources were utilized to differentiate the lexical, etymological, and semantic aspects of the word “pandemic” in a chronological context. This facilitated a deeper comprehension of the word’s evolution and the alterations in its usage throughout history. The study thoroughly examined different aspects of the concept in question both in synchrony and diachrony. First, the etymological image of the concept (word) “pandemic” in three languages was analyzed using trusted etymological dictionaries. This stage was important since “Etymological knowledge helps to recover the intrinsic form of words and thus helps to form the initial basis of ideas” [32]. The original appearance and internal form of concepts reveal their cultural roots and rationale, making it possible to explore the deep connection and cultural genes of concepts in a culture. By analyzing cultural memories and cultural nodes, and combining them with national cultural clues such as cultural comparisons, this study determined the origin and generation mechanism of national cultural concepts. In addition, the interpretive and metaphorical meanings of this concept in each language were studied to reveal its versatility. The explanatory dictionaries of each language enabled a deeper understanding of the meaning and contexts of the word “pandemic.” In the synchronic aspect, the Sketch Engine software was unitized to analyze the combinability of concepts-words and identify the image and axiological meaning of the concept of pandemic in the three languages. In addition, the grammatical structures of the word “pandemic” were considered in relation to other words from a collection of texts to study its usage in different syntactic contexts. In order to determine the intensity of the concept of pandemic, the frequency of combinations and coincidences was analyzed using Sketch Engine [33]. This tool provided a powerful means to analyze and process textual data, identifying connections between words and concepts. Due to the use of Sketch Engine, this study demonstrated how “pandemic” is used in different contexts, identified other words and concepts that are often associated with the concept under study, and revealed how these connections can change over time. Finally, the 2020 global outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic, a public health event, made it possible to self-construct a corpus of Chinese-English-Russian mainstream media reports. These reports were analyzed to explore the linguistic and cultural perceptions of the pandemic in the news discourse and further explain the similarities and differences among these three countries’ linguistic consciousnesses regarding the pandemic.

In the diachronic perspective, the visual curve illustrating the frequency of the word “pandemic” was analyzed using Google Books Ngram Viewer and other collections of texts. Thus, the tendency of changes in the word “pandemic” as a cultural concept over a much longer period (100 years) was determined. In addition, Google Books Ngram Viewer was utilized to construct a word frequency chart [34]. This tool enabled the analysis of text corpora collected in Google Books and the visualization of specific word usage frequency over time. By selecting the desired corpus of texts, setting the range of years, and entering the words chosen for analysis, we obtained a graphical representation of the diachronic changes in the use of the word “pandemic.”

Limitations

The present study focuses on three languages – Chinese, Russian, and English. While these languages provide valuable insights into the linguistic consciousness of different cultural contexts, they do not encompass the entirety of global linguistic diversity. Other languages may have unique perspectives and nuances related to the concept of pandemic that were not captured in this study.

1. This study used language dictionaries and resources to analyze the lexical aspects of the word “pandemic.” However, dictionaries may not cover the full range of lexical variations and meanings. In addition, languages change over time, and new lexical expressions related to the concept of pandemic may have emerged since we collected our data.

2. The availability and accessibility of language resources and corpora for each language may affect the scope and depth of the research. Variations in the availability of data between languages may introduce biases or limitations in the comparative analysis of the concept of pandemic.

Results

Etymological Prototype of the Concept-Word 疫/pandemic/пандемия

Etymological analysis was used to reconstruct the evolution of the national mind and reveal the humanistic environment and national mind behind the cultural concepts. This provided an important basis for understanding the connotation, background, formation process and historical conditions of the cultural concepts. Over time, the meaning of “pandemic” has evolved to represent global health crises that affect a significant part of the world’s population, often crossing national borders and becoming a matter of international concern. This transformation reflects the changing perception and understanding of diseases and their impact on a global scale. The etymological image of the concept/word “pandemic” conveys a powerful sense of universality, encompassing the idea of widespread disease or health issues affecting humanity, transcending individual borders and calling for collective efforts to address and manage such crises. In this regard, it is necessary to analyze the etymological origin of the word “pandemic” in Chinese, Russian, and English.

The Chinese Explanatory Dictionary gives the rational meaning of the word 疫(yi, pandemic) as “the large-scale spread of disease or infection” [35]. 疫情 (yi qing) is a modern Chinese collocation, in which the first character 疫 (yi) means “pandemic, acute infectious disease.” The second character 情 (qing) is a polysemous word with multiple meanings, which refer to feelings, love, lust, sentiment and situation. In the collocation in question, this character means “condition, situation.” It is evident that in the content described by 疫情 (yi qing), 疫(yi) is the character that carries the core meaning. The etymological analysis revealed the etymology of the character 疫 (yi) and the meaning of 疫情 (yi qing). The etymological information about the character 疫 (yi) was used to investigate the original imagery behind the concept of 疫情 (yi qing) [36] (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2.

Evolution of Chinese Character 疫 (yi). Source: Online Pictographic Dictionary (https://www.vividict.com)

The Chinese character for 疫(yi) in the Chinese oracle bone inscriptions is . It consists of two parts:   and  , In the seal script, is abbreviated as , and is written as . In the seal script, this character is written as . In the oracle bone inscriptions, the character (殳, shu) denotes a weapon made of bamboo and wood, usually with a prong at the top [37] (Fig. 3), which was mainly used for hitting. Initially, the character殳described the use of heavy hammers to strike rocks and mine stones. In Chinese, all words that contain this character typically imply concepts related to beating, killing and impacting, such as 殴 (ou, beating), 毁 (hui, destroying), and 段 (duan, segmenting). The other part of the character (疒 ne) means the upright form of the bed. The image of ‘疒’ in the oracle bone inscriptions is , which consists of the first figure (representing the shape of a four-legged wooden board, also known as a bed), the second part (a person) and the third part (sweat), which basically means “a person lying on a bed sweating” [38] (Fig. 4). In Chinese characters, all characters from the radical "疒" are often associated with illness, such as 疤 (ba, scar), 癌 (ai, cancer), 痛(tong, pain) etc. The Shuowen Jiezi has 102 characters in the “疒” section, all of which have meanings related to diseases. In this case, the radical “疒” is used as a symbol of illness.

Fig. 3.

Pictographic evolution of Chinese character 殳(shu). Source: Online character etymology reference

Fig. 4.

Pictographic evolution of Chinese character "(疒 ne)". Source: Online character etymology reference

The left side of this character represents a person lying sick in bed, while its right side shows a weapon in a hand. Based on these images, it can be inferred that due to ancient undeveloped medical science and technology, it was believed that 疫 (yi) was a god or a ghost that compelled people to fall ill and remain bedridden. In the Shuowen Jiezi, Xu Shen explains: “疫 (yi): the people are all ill. The population of my fellow clansmen was originally large, and formerly numbered more than two hundred. Since the first year of Jian’an, less than ten years ago, two-thirds of them have died, and seven-tenths of them died of typhoid fever [39]. Cao Zhi (192–232), a poet of the Three Kingdoms period, also described this event in “About pandemic”: “Jian’an year twenty-two, the plague pandemic, families have the pain of zombies, rooms have the grief of sobbing, all doors are choked, the entire families are dead” [40]. The pandemic described by these authors was a highly contagious and deadly virulent infectious disease. In addition, the character 疫 (yi) has “ghosts and gods” embedded in its meaning. Consequently, 疫(yi) not only describes a pandemic as an event, but also refers to the ghosts that “caused” this event. Liu Xi of the Eastern Han Dynasty explained the etymology of the word “epidemic” in his Interpretation of Names: “Epidemic (yi) i.e. servitude (yi) means driven out by ghosts to serve in corvee.” That is, the epidemic was seen as a disease caused by ghosts and gods [41]. The national Kangxi Dictionary of the Qing Dynasty (1716) provides an example of a phrase containing the word “pandemic”: “疫 (yi). Remember the demons of serious illness” [42]. The high mortality rate led the ancients to believe that diseases were caused by an unknown force, either a punishment from the heavens or the work of the devil. Consequently, people often resorted to various rituals and ceremonies in order to ward off pandemic spirits. In ancient China, there was a specific dance called Nuo, which served as a primitive form of ritual among Han Chinese to worship teities and to ward off plagues and epidemics. The Book of Rites said: “Nuo is used to drive away the pandemic ghosts.” Later, the ceremony has gradually become a purely folkloric activity, with more symbolism than actual substance. In modern Chinese, 疫 (yi) is interpreted as “pandemic, acute infectious disease, plague.”

The English word “pandemic” derives from the Latin. Etymologically, it consists of two components: 1) pan- (a prefix meaning “all”, “whole” or “complete”) and dēmos (a word that means “people” or “nation”). Accordingly, “pandemic” is defined as a disease prevalent over a whole country or the world [43]. Thus, “pandemic” can be literally translated as “the whole people” or, as an adjective, “widespread among the whole people”. The term is used to describe an epidemic or disease that spreads over a wide area, spanning different countries and continents, and affects a significant portion of the population.

The English Dictionary explains the meaning of the word “pandemic” as “a disease that affects a large number of people, the planet, or the population.” In the metaphorical sense, the word “pandemic” can be used in collocations such as pandemic fear (pandemic fear of nuclear war) [44]. The word “pandemic” has a close synonym in English – “epidemic.” According to Online Etymology Dictionary, Epidemic (adj.) means common to or affecting a whole people (originally and usually, though not etymologically, in reference to diseases, from French épidémique, from épidemié “an epidemic disease,” from Medieval Latin epidemia, from Greek epidēmia “a stay in a place; prevalence of an epidemic disease” (especially the plague), from epi “among, upon” + demos “people, district”). The noun “epidemic” was derived from this adjective. Online Etymology Dictionary also states, “Epidemic (n.) ‒1757, “an epidemic disease, a temporary prevalence of a disease throughout a community,” from epidemic (adj.); earlier epideme” [45].

Russian Etymological Dictionary

The Russian equivalent of “pandemic” comes from the Greek term πανδημία (pandēmía). Etymologically, this word consists of two components:

• 1) παν- (pan-) is a prefix in Greek that means “all” or “everything”;

• 2) δῆμος (dēmos) is the Greek word for “people” [46].

Thus, πανδημία (pandēmía) can be translated as “the entire population” or “prevalent among the entire people.” This term is used to describe an epidemic or disease that spreads over a large area or to the entire nation, covering different regions and countries. Today, the word “pandemic” refers to particularly large and widespread pandemics that affect the entire planet, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.

Based on the definition from the Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language, the main meaning of the word “pandemic” is “a rational description of widespread outbreaks of infectious diseases that cover a large area and affect a significant number of people.” With regard to derivative and metaphorical meanings, “pandemic” in Russian can also be used to metaphorically refer to a negative phenomenon or trend that spreads among a large number of people and has a considerable impact on society [47].

Synchronic Correlation of the Concept-Word 疫情/pandemic/пандемия

To examine the representation of pandemic-related cultural concepts in Chinese, English, and Russian linguistic consciousness prior to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus pandemic in 2020, this study employs Sketch Engine corpus analysis tools for cross-linguistic comparative research. The investigation utilizes three large-scale web corpora: the Chinese web corpus (ZhTenTen2017) and Russian web corpus (RuTenTen2017), both constructed in 2017, and the English web corpus (EnTenTen2018) constructed in 2018. The query terms selected were “疫情” for Chinese, “pandemic” for English, and “пандемия” for Russian. The Word Sketch function was applied to conduct lexical co-occurrence analysis, with a minimum absolute frequency threshold established at 10 for co-occurring lexical items to ensure data reliability. Furthermore, the minimum LogDice coefficient value was set at 3, as this coefficient functions as a standardized statistical measure for quantifying lexical association strength within Sketch Engine. Values of ≥3 indicate statistically significant correlations between lexical items, thus ensuring the methodological rigor and validity of the analytical findings.

Co-occurrence Data and Conceptual Analysis of Chinese 疫情

And/or (e.g. 疫情、灾情/pandemic, disaster): 非典(Atypical Pneumonia), 险情(emergency conditions), 家禽(poultry), 群体性(mass incidents), 病例(clinical cases), 谣言(rumors); N_Modifier (e.g. 禽流感疫情avian influenza pandemic): 埃博拉(Ebola), 传染病(infectious diseases), H7N9 禽流感(H7N9 avian influenza), 登革热(dengue fever), 非典(Atypical Pneumonia), MERS, 艾滋病(HIV/AIDS), SARS, 霍乱(cholera), 口蹄疫(foot-and-mouth disease); Object_of (e.g. 抗击疫情/fight against the pandemic): 严防(prevent strictly)，防控(prevent and control), 扑灭(eradicate), 遏制(contain), 隐瞒(conceal); Subject_of (e.g.疫情暴发/ pandemic break out): 扩散(spread), 蔓延(propagate), 高发(occur frequently), 肆虐(rages); Modifies (疫情监测/ pandemic monitoring): 防控工作(prevention and control), 监测(monitoring), 战略规(strategic planning), 报告人(reporter), 通报制度(notification system), 重灾区(severely affected area by the pandemic), 应急(emergency response), 联防联控工作机制(implement joint prevention and control mechanisms), 应急指挥部(activate emergency command centers); Possession (e.g. 疫情的蔓延/The propagation of the pandemic): 处置(management), 预警(early warning), 早发现(early detection), 早报告(early reporting); A_Modifier: 蔓延的(spreading), 肆虐(the rampant), 突如其来的(the sudden), 来势汹汹的(menacing), 让人闻风丧胆的(terrifying); Direct-Object_of: 向西非国家抗击埃博拉疫情提供(providing support to West African countries in combating the Ebola pandemic), 向非洲国家应对埃博拉疫情提供(providing support to African countries in responding to the Ebola pandemic), 将疫情消灭在萌芽状态(nipping the pandemic in the bud), 将疫情上报(reporting the pandemic), 向社会公布疫情(announcing the pandemic to the public).

Co-occurrence data of Chinese "疫情" (pandemic) reveals high public attention to major outbreaks before 2017: Ebola (2014-2016), H7N9 avian influenza (2013), Atypical Pneumonia (2003), and MERS (2015). Frequent specific disease naming indicates a shift from vague "diseases" to precise pathogen terminology, showing scientific language popularization in public discourse. West African countries (Liberia, Guinea) mentions directly correspond to Ebola pandemic locations.

Chinese corpus presents three frameworks: First, pandemics as challenges requiring "抗击"(fight against), "防控" (prevent and control), and "扑灭" (eradicate); Second, as natural processes with "暴发" (break out), "蔓延" (propagate), and "扩散" (spread), implying uncontrollable crisis, with "来势汹汹的" (menacing) and "肆虐" (rages) emphasizing human vulnerability; Third, as information events requiring "通报" (notification), "报告" (reporting), and "公布" (announcing to the public). Evaluative language like "闻风丧胆的" (terrifying) reflects public anxiety, while "早发现" (early detection), "早报告" (early reporting), and "将疫情消灭在萌芽状态" (nipping the pandemic in the bud) show confidence in control measures. Institutionalized terms like "疫情防控指挥部" (activate emergency command centers), "监测" (monitoring), and "通报制度" (notification system) position the state as central in pandemic management. Concepts like "联防联控" (implement joint prevention and control mechanisms) frame pandemics as threats requiring collective action, incorporating individual behavior into public responsibility, reflecting China's "collective security priority." Phrases like "向西非国家抗击埃博拉疫情提供" (providing support to West African countries in combating the Ebola pandemic) highlight China's aid during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak. Chinese pandemic discourse ultimately emphasizes collective ethics and institutional governance.

Co-occurrence Data and Conceptual Analysis of English Pandemic

Modifiers of "pandemic" (e.g. influenza pandemic): flu, the H1N1, the HIV / AIDS, plague , cholera, the Ebola, H5N1; Nouns modified by "pandemic": pandemic H1N1, influenza, flu, Preparedness, terrorism, HIV; Verbs with "pandemic" as object: receding pandemics, combat, averted, declare, spark, unleash, stem, halt, looming, trigger, pandemic originated in, curb; Verbs with "pandemic" as subject: pandemic has decimated, ravaging, devastates, sweeping, wipes out, afflicting, infected, spreading, killed, erupted in, looms; "pandemic" and/or …: epidemics, outbreaks ,bioterrorism, extreme pandemics, plagues, Settlers of Catan, influenza, flu, disasters, SARS, famines; Adjective predicates of "pandemic": a pandemic is imminent, was mild, is inevitable, is severe; “pandemic” is a …: pandemic is a global outbreak, was an influenza pandemic, is an epidemic, are omnipresent threats, is a disease; … is a “pandemic”: flu is a pandemic, AIDS is a pandemic, Obesity is a pandemic.

Co-occurrence data of "pandemic" in English corpus precisely corresponds to early 21st century public health crises, dominated by influenza-type diseases (influenza/flu, H1N1, swine flu, avian flu), while "HIV/AIDS pandemic" records ongoing global AIDS epidemic, and "Ebola pandemic" refers to the 2014 West African outbreak. High-frequency combination of disease names with geographical labels (e.g., "avian flu pandemic originated in Asia") reveals Western media's preference for "origin tracing" discourse.

English pandemic descriptions present three metaphorical frameworks: The "enemy" metaphor using militarized vocabulary like "combat," "stem," and "halt"; the "natural force" framework with terms like "sweeping", "ravaging" and "erupted", constructing pandemic as autonomous destructive phenomenon; and the "global threat" framework, placing pandemic alongside terrorism, disasters, and famines within global risk governance, reinforcing cross-border "security crisis" awareness. Adjectives like "imminent," "inevitable", and "looming" construct uncertainty anxiety, creating tension with "receding pandemics" that reflects modern society's paradoxical risk cognition—simultaneously believing in scientific control while fearing its loss. A notable feature of English pandemic discourse is concept extension to non-infectious contexts ("obesity is a pandemic"), reflecting metaphorical understanding of social problems while potentially blurring essential distinctions between diseases and social issues. English pandemic discourse emphasizes globality, extends broadly to non-infectious domains, and has deeply integrated into popular culture.

Co-occurrence Data and Conceptual Analysis of Russian Пандемия

пандемия(pandemic) (gen-poss) + noun: эпидемия и пандемия (epidemics and pandemics),грипп и пандемия (influenza and pandemics) , угроза новой пандемии (the threat of a new pandemic) ;

adj. + пандемия (pandemic)：неинфекционные (non-infectious ), гриппозная( influenza ), опустошающая (devastating ), смертоносная (deadly), наркотическая( drug ), глобальная (global), 3-я пандемия (the third) etc.;

пандемия(pandemic) + noun (gen-poss): пандемия Испанки ( Spanish flu pandemic), пандемия свиного гриппа (swine flu pandemic), пандемия чумы (plague pandemic), пандемия эпидемий (pandemics of epidemics), пандемия смертельного вируса (pandemics of a deadly virus) etc.;

пандемия(pandemic) + v.: унесла (claimed), разразится ( break out), охватила (swept), угрожает (threatens) etc.;

noun + prep.+ пандемия(pandemic): борьба с пандемией (fighting the pandemic) ， готовность к пандемии гриппа (readiness for the flu pandemic) ， подготовка к пандемии (preparation for the pandemic) ， грипп спасает человечество от пандемий (the flu saves humanity from pandemics).

Co-occurrence data of Russian "пандемия" (pandemic) reflects strong historical consciousness, frequently referencing historical epidemics like "пандемия Испанки" (Spanish flu pandemic) and "пандемия чумы" (plague pandemic), placing modern outbreaks within infectious disease history and reinforcing pandemic as cyclical disaster in collective memory. An extreme catastrophic framing employs strong adjectives like "смертоносная" (deadly) and "опустошающая" (devastating) to construct pandemic as severe threat, exceeding intensity in English "severe" and Chinese "来势汹汹的"(menacing), continuing Russian "suffering sublimation" tradition that elevates pandemic suffering as necessary spiritual purification. This serves as both reality response and linguistic mirror of Russian cultural traits. The pandemic is also constructed as enemy through "борьбa с пандемией" (fighting the pandemic), indicating outbreaks require resistance and combat.

In power relations, Russian pandemic discourse emphasizes "готовность к пандемии гриппа" (readiness for the flu pandemic) and "подготовка к пандемии" (preparation for the pandemic), constructing the state as main prevention subject. Notably, pandemic concept extends to social issues like "наркотическая" (drug), reflecting "medicalization" of social problems that may rationalize specific interventions. Expressions like "грипп спасает человечество от пандемий" (the flu saves humanity from pandemics) subvert the "pathogen = harm" framework, reflecting Russian skepticism toward scientific certainty. Russian pandemic discourse constructs influenza as both threat (traditional) and redemption (new), embodying typical Russian cultural extremity and duality. Overall, Russian pandemic discourse demonstrates strong historical consciousness, catastrophic threat perception, and state-centered response framework, reflecting Russian society's specific cognitive approach to large-scale disease outbreaks.

Diachronic Change in usage of the Concept-Word 疫情/пандемия/pandemic

The diachronic analysis of words that denote pandemics in the three languages covered the period from 1919 to 2019. Google Books Ngram Viewer made it possible to track changes in the usage of the word “pandemic” over time. Thus, the frequency of using 疫情 in the Chinese corpus changed with time. The results showed that this word was most actively used in the period from 1952 to 1957. During this period, the Asian flu pandemic was actively discussed in China, and this event attracted the attention of the public and the media (Fig. 5).

Fig. 5.

Usage Pattern of 疫情, Chinese Corpus. Source: Developed by the author based on information from the Google Books Ngram Viewer

After 1957, the usage frequency of 疫情 began to decline, which may indicate a decrease in public interest in pandemics or a decrease in health threats at that time. However, the use of 疫情 peaked in 2005, indicating a new outbreak of class A and class B infectious diseases during this period (according to the Ministry of Health of China). Given the changes in the frequency of using 疫情 over the years, it can be assumed that the word has been actively used in the context of specific pandemics or global health events that have occurred in different periods of Chinese history. The graph below illustrates the frequency pattern of the word “pandemic” in English from 1919 to 2019. This graph demonstrates interesting trends and periods of active use of this word (Fig. 6).

Fig. 6.

Usage Pattern of “pandemic.” English Corpus. Source: Developed by the author based on information from the Google Books Ngram Viewer

Starting around 2000, the frequency graph shows an increase in the use of the word “pandemic.” This may reflect an increase in global attention to health issues, particularly those related to infectious diseases, and a willingness to respond effectively to possible pandemics. The peak of usage was in 2008, as confirmed by the frequency graph showing that the word “pandemic” was most used in 2008, which may be due to the outbreak of the H1N1 flu, also known as swine flu. This event attracted worldwide attention and sparked global discussions and measures to control and spread the pandemic. After a peak in 2008, the usage frequency of the word “pandemic” began to decline. After the H1N1 pandemic and the introduction of control measures, the level of threat and attention to pandemics decreased, and therefore the use of the word became less active.

The detailed frequency graph for the word пaндeмия (the Russian corpus) demonstrates the periods of its active use in relation to specific pandemics and diseases (Fig. 7).

Fig. 7.

Usage Pattern of Пaндeмия. Russian Corpus. Source: Developed by the author based on information from the Google Books Ngram Viewer

The graph shows the active phase of the use of the word пaндeмия in 1919, a period that may be associated with the discussion of an infectious disease known as Spanish flu. This disease emerged in 1918 and spread rapidly around the world, causing a substantial number of illnesses and deaths. Another peak in the use of the word was observed in 1958. This year was the period of the Asian flu, which was another global pandemic that also resulted in illnesses and deaths. The third peak in the use of пaндeмия took place in 2005. This may be due to the spread of bird flu, which caused serious concern and media discussion, as it had the potential to become a pandemic. The frequency graph for пaндeмия in the Russian corpus shows which specific pandemics and diseases have attracted the most attention and discussion in Russian society over the years. This indicates that the pandemics have had a strong impact on the linguistic discussions and cultural stereotypes that shape the public’s perception and reaction to such events.

The representation of 疫情/pandemic/пандемия in Chinese, English and Russian mainstream media

Next, we turn to discourse analysis of pandemic-related news reporting text during the COVID-19 period. We have compiled pandemic-related texts from the Chinese, English, and Russian mainstream news media (People's Daily Online, BBC, TASS) for the period from January 2020 to December 2023. Van Dijk, a Dutch linguist, has proposed the theory of discourse, knowledge and society (2014) in the field of news text analysis in order to deeply understand the characteristics and connotations of news discourse performance [48]. Discourse is the carrier of ideological content and contains the speaker’s position. The discourse in mainstream media reports has a hidden power, which reveals the views and opinions of different subjects on a certain thing or event, as well as the values behind them. This helps compare and study similar concepts in different languages through the conceptual words and comprehend the cognitive tendencies of different ethnic groups [49]. Therefore, this section of the paper analyzes news reports containing the words 疫情/pandemic/пандемия for 2020–2023 from the official mainstream media planforms in China (People’s Daily Online), England (BBC), and Russia (TACC). Thus, the section presents an originally developed corpus of texts. The text analysis software, Sketch Engine, was utilized to calculate the high-frequency words and high-frequency collocations with the words 疫情/pandemic/пaндeмия in the reports under study. The study elaborates on the basic content of the concept of 疫情/pandemic/пaндeмия in mainstream media reports and its similarities and differences in Chinese, English, and Russian linguistic consciousness.

Firstly, the reports containing the words 疫情/pandemic/пaндeмия were collected and estimated using the Python software. The corpus analyzed in this study includes 15,971 reports in Chinese (6,273 for 2020, 3,701 for 2021, 4,717 for 2022, and 1,280 for 2023), 234 reports in English (58 for 2020, 48 for 2021, 56 for 2022, and 72 for 2023) and 2,731 reports in Russian (829 for 2020, 905 for 2021, 520 for 2022, and 477 for 2023). In the process of data cleansing and merging, only texts in which the conceptual words appeared no less than three times were selected. This was done to exclude reports that were not relevant to the theme of the pandemic. Finally, three corpora of pandemic-related reports from the three media were built: the Chinese corpus (7,334,857 Chinese characters), the English corpus (35,736 words) and the Russian corpus (761,148 words).

High-frequency content words tend to illustrate the focus of attention in the relevant thematic text, which is the external manifestation of the core topic at the lexical level. We excluded all the content words, This is due to referential indeterminacy of function words. Using the Wordlist function in Sketch Engine, We obtained the 3 following tables of top-20 high-frequency content words in the frequency ranking in the corpus of Chinese, English and Russian media reports (see Tables 1, 2 and 3).

Table 1.

List of High-Frequency Content Words in the Corpus of Pandemic Reports from People’s Daily Online

Ranking	Content word	Frequency	Ranking	Content word	Frequency
1	一(one)	72,121	11	对(	25,012
2	中国(China)	49,781	12	工作(work)	22,472
3	疫情(pandemic)	49,090	13	国家(nation)	22,368
4	中(among)	46,695	14	国(country	20,827
5	新(novel)	43,748	15	控(control)	19,923
6	发展(development)	30,627	16	到(arrive, up to)	18,567
7	大(big)	26,774	17	防(protect)	18,142
8	人民(people)	26,676	18	经济(economics)	17,690
9	多(many)	25,888	19	冠(coronal)	16,263
10	人(person)	25,641	20	更(more)	16,090

Table 2.

List of High-Frequency Content Words in the Corpus of Pandemic Reports from BBC

Ranking	Content word	Frequency	Number	Content word	Frequency
1	be	1256	11	new	96
2	have	602	12	COVID-19	95
3	pandemic	260	13	world	81
4	work	205	14	many	80
5	say	315	15	now	76
6	more	173	16	health	75
7	people	161	17	so	68
8	can	160	18	some	67
9	COVID	140	19	case	66
10	virus	108	20	one	65

Table 3.

List of High-Frequency Content Words in the Corpus of Pandemic Reports from TASS

Ranking	Content word	Frequency	Ranking	Content word	Frequency
1	быть(be)	9815	11	дpyгoй(other)	1783
2	чeлoвeк(preson)	3245	12	мнoгo(many)	1712
3	cтpaнa(country)	2775	13	oчeнь(very)	1647
4	пaндeмия(pandemic)	2714	14	paбoтa(job, work)	1613
5	мoчь(can)	2519	15	пepвый(first)	1542
6	вpeмя(time)	1930	16	гoвopить(tell)	1521
7	Poccия(Russia)	1871	17	кopoнaвиpyc(coronavirus)	1342
8	нoвый(novel)	1864	18	paбoтaть(to work)	1310
9	cтaнoвитьcя(become)	1832	19	миp(world)	1252
10	oдин(one)	1816	20	кoмпaния(company)	1218

The analysis of the high-frequency words in the media corpora under study revealed that the 疫情/pandemic/пандемия appear in all three lists. Consequently, it can be inferred that this public health event has been highly discussed in the reports on “pandemic” and that the common noun “pandemic” can directly refer to the “COVID-19 pandemic” in some reports from 2020 to 2023. At the same time, the content word “people” in the media corpora of all three countries indicates that the relationship between the outbreak/spread of the pandemic and “people” has aroused interest in Chinese, English, and Russian media.

Compared with the reports from the English media, “country” and the proper nouns of the corresponding countries were found to be high-frequency words in the Chinese and Russian reports. Thus, the subject “country” has been actively discussed with regard to the prevention and control of the pandemic. In addition, in the English and Russian corpora, the frequent use of “world” and миp suggests that the media in these countries tend to pay more attention to the global spread and impact of the pandemic. In turn, the Chinese corpus is more focused on the social and economic development of the country during the pandemic.

努力用最小的代价实现最大的防控效果, 最大限度减少疫情对经济社会发展的影响。(We made great efforts to achieve maximum prevention and control effects at minimum cost, as well as to minimize the impact of the pandemic on economic and social development.) (2022–03-19).

我国统筹经济社会发展和疫情防控取得良好效果, 彰显负责任大国担当, 创造了人类同疾病斗争史上的奇迹。(Our country has achieved good results in integrating economic and social development with pandemic prevention and control, demonstrating our role as a responsible global leader and our remarkable achievement in the history of humanity’s fight against diseases.) (2023–01-10).

In the Chinese corpus, “防” and “控” are high-frequency words, which is not evident in English and Russian linguistic data. This confirms that China adopted strict blockade measures at the onset of the pandemic and promptly took large-scale measures of detection, tracing, isolation, and treatment. In contrast, the response to the pandemic in the United Kingdom and Russia was much more relaxed.

Linguistics believes that syntax reflects both the rational connection between words, their referents, and other phenomena and the sub-logical, non-rational emotional evaluation of human perception of the world [50]. At the same time, the linguistic knowledge and cognitive concepts that are not explicitly expressed by the speakers often determine the syntactic structure of a certain linguistic unit in speech. These knowledge and concepts can be revealed in collocations. Therefore, the perceptual awareness of the relevant concepts in a speaker’s linguistic consciousness can be analyzed based on the syntactic patterns of conceptual words in language. In this section, the study further specifies high-frequency collocations and typical usage of 疫情/pandemic/пaндeмия. The analysis was conducted using the software Sketch Engine. In the Chinese corpus, we focus on the predicates and modifiers that were ranked in the top 8 in terms of their frequency of collocations with the conceptual words. Since the word 疫 is used less frequently than 疫情 in Chinese, the latter was used as a keyword. The English and Russian corpora are relatively smaller, and it was therefore reasonable to focus on the predicates and modifiers that were ranked in the top 4 in terms of their frequency of collocations with conceptual words. The keyword in the English corpus was “pandemic,” and the keyword in Russian was “пaндeмия”. The details are as follows:

The high-frequency predicates of word 疫情 in Chinese reports are: 发生(occurrence, 1501), 爆发(outbreak, 859), 蔓延(spread, 706), 结束(finish, 262), 持续(continue, 252), 扩散( diffusion, 216), 带来(bring, 230), 肆虐(ravage, 165). The high-frequency modifiers are: 肺炎(Pneumonia, 6519), 新冠(novel coronavirus, 1554), 世纪(century, 204), 国内(domestic, 204), 全国(nationwide, 197), 当前(current, 114), 武汉(Wuhan, 110), 非典(SARS, 98). This shows that in the Chinese linguistic consciousness, there is an emphasis on the whole process of dynamic development of the pandemic, including its occurrence, outbreak, spread, and end. At the same time, the impact and consequences of the pandemic are seen as being exceptionally serious and having devastated the country. With regard to adjectives, the word 肺炎 (pneumonia) is used to refer to the pandemic to specify its type as “COVID-19 pandemic”. Another term, 非典 (SARS), also defines the type of the pandemic (SARS pandemic). This indicates that the media continue to refer to China’s 2003 SARS outbreak, suggesting that the Chinese public remembers the SARS pandemic well, or that the two events are often compared in various ways. The rest of the modifiers are mainly developed from a temporal (世纪, 当前) and spatial (国内, 全国, 武汉) perspectives, detailing the severity of the pandemic’s consequences for the country.

In English reports, the high-frequency predicates of “pandemic” are the following words: be (28), have (25), affect (5), cause (3). High-frequency modifiers include coronavirus (13), COVID-19 (9), COVID (5), and global (3). The analysis shows that due to its grammatical structure, the verb “be” is used both to indicate auxiliary usage (for instance, tense) and to describe the pandemic, with the same focus on its impact and consequences. Unlike the Chinese linguistic data, the English corpus emphasize the pandemic's impact through more terms describing negative outcomes (e.g., economic fallout). English texts frenquently employ the terms “coronavirus”, “COVID-19”, and “COVID” to denote the pandemic. On the other hand, the spatial perspective is used to express the wide range of outbreaks and development of the pandemic. In addition, the analysis of English reports demonstrated that the English media not only frequently use the word “pandemic” as the main subject of the narrative, but also incorporate words such as “COVID-19”, “COVID,” and other related lexical units to describe the situation of the pandemic. In this part of the corpus, the adjective “long” was found to modify “COVID” up to 9 times, which indicates that the pandemic is perceived by the public as long in terms of duration. “COVID” also often serves as a modifier of other nouns, such as “COVID restriction,” which occurs with a frequency of 5. This shows that the pandemic has imposed restrictions on the life of the society, which is not mentioned in the Chinese and Russian corpora.

In the TASS pandemic-related reports, the high-frequency predicates of “пaндeмия” are: пoвлиять (26), зaкoнчитьcя (16), внecти (15), нaчaтьcя (14). High-frequency adjectives are: нoвый (21), cлeдyющий (9), нынeшний (8), and глoбaльный (7). Russian reports also focus on the “beginning” and “end” of the pandemic and its impact. However, unlike Chinese reports, the word зaкoнчитьcя appears more frequently than нaчaтьcя in Russian reports, suggesting that the end of the pandemic has attracted more attention after the severe and persistent pandemic period. The rest of the high-frequency predicates mainly describe the consequences of the pandemic. The high-frequency modifiers emphasize the public’s concern with the “future and next outbreak.” In addition, from the temporal and spatial perspectives, adjectives also reflect the apprehension regarding the global pandemic and its ongoing and prospective consequences.

An overview of these high-frequency words reveals that both Chinese and Russian texts emphasize the beginning of the pandemic and its impact. However, Chinese reports tend to describe the whole process of the pandemic and its rapid development. In turn, in Russian texts, the end of the pandemic is more frequently discussed than its beginning. Russian reports also focus on the current and future risks of a pandemic. In English texts, the emphasis is on the consequences of the pandemic and the global spread of the pandemic from the spatial perspective. It is worth mentioning that the analysis of the collocations demonstrated that among the eight high-frequency modifiers collocated with “pandemic,” Chinese spatial words are primarily related to the pandemic situation in China, while English and Russian spatial words (such as “global”) describe the pandemic situation worldwide. In addition, the differences in the terminology for the pandemic are evident in Chinese and English high-frequency words. For instance, the Chinese term 肺炎疫情 includes an epithet for the virus-induced disease (肺炎, pneumonia) and the word 疫情 (pandemic). On the contrary, the English texts directly refer to the names of the virus, such as coronavirus, COVID-19, and pandemic. Although in the Russian corpus of high-frequency words, there is no direct naming, the pandemic is described by using the term кopoнaвиpyc or by quoting “COVID-19” in English.

A metaphorical analysis of pandemic representaiton in media coverage significantly contributes to elucidating the multidimensional public congtition of health crisis. Through systematic cross-domain mapping mechanisms, metaphor selectively highlight and conceal specific attributes, thereby constructing mental imbued with particular emotional tones and value orientations. This cognitive restructuring process ultimately reifies abstract concepts and simplifies complex information, facilitating efficient image transmission and reception. The index line of conceptual words shows that the war metaphor occupies an important place in the Chinese and Russian corpora.

支援国内打好疫情阻击战、歼灭战。(Support the domestic fight against the pandemic and the war of annihilation.)(2023–01-10).

中国政府采取一系列强有力措施, 人民信任并且全力支持, 抗击疫情取得显著成效。(The Chinese Government has taken a series of strong measures, and with the trust and full support of the people, it has achieved remarkable results in combating the pandemic.)(2023–01-19).

特别在疫情防控工作中, 雷锋车队党总支主动向街道党工委递交 “请战书”, 组建 “抗疫先锋队”, 累计参与小区值守700多个小时。(Especially in the pandemic prevention and control work, the Lei Feng Fleet Party Branch took the initiative to submit a “letter of Request to participate in war” to the Street Party Committee and form an “anti-pandemic vanguard,” with the cumulative total of more than 700 h of participation in the district guard activities.)(2023–03-13).

全国人民坚忍不拔, 取得重大决定性胜利。(The people of the country persisted and achieved a major and decisive victory.)(2023–03-14).

我们向医院党委请战, 随时听候调遣, 奔赴抗疫最前线!(We asked the hospital party committee to go to war, ready to be dispatched to the front line of the fight against the pandemic!)(2023–01-09).

In the linguistic data, Chinese media have mapped the domain of war onto the pandemic itself. The process, subjects involved, outcomes, and place of pandemic prevention is described as a war. Similarly, in the Russian linguistic data, there are high-frequency expressions such as бopoтьcя c пaндeмиeй, cтpaтeгия пpaвитeльcтвa пo peaгиpoвaнию нa кopoнaвиpyc, and пoбeдить пaндeмию. These collocations metaphorically refer to the pandemic as a war by describing the “war” and its development, participants, strategies, and consequences. In addition, nature metaphors, examination metaphors, and religion metaphors are also used in Chinese, such as:

避免因大规模人员聚集引发疫情复燃。(The pandemic may rise from the ashes due to large gatherings of people.)(2020–05-13).

疫情的外溢: 欧盟集体协调的 “失调”。(The spillover of the pandemic: the “dysfunction” of collective coordination in the EU.)(2020–04-10).

世界卫生组织曾警告称, 欧洲已再度成为新冠肺炎疫情 “震中”, 新冠肺炎病例激增的形势令人忧心。(The World Health Organization has warned that Europe has once again become the “epicenter” of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the surge in the number of cases of the pandemic is concerning.)(2022–01-15).

The above three sentences contain nature-related metaphors. The pandemic is compared to a fire, a liquid, and an earthquake respectively. These metaphors reflect the danger, rapid spread, and serious consequences of the pandemic.

而自2020年初新冠肺炎疫情暴发以来, 防控疫情成为一场生死大考。(Since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, preventing and controlling the pandemic has become a life-and-death test.)(2021–07-21).

不仅保证医务人员零感染, 还以硬实力交出危重症病例零死亡的优秀答卷。(Not only to ensure that none of the medical staff are infected, but also to use the hard power to deliver an excellent service with zero deaths in critical cases.)(2021–07-16).

“Angels” and “devils” are typical opposing images in religion. The comparison of medical personnel with angels and the pandemic with the devil highlights the attributes of “holiness” and “evil” for both sides. The texts use these references to contrast the power of the medical personnel with the cruelty of the pandemic.

Nature metaphors also appear in the Russian linguistic corpus, for example:

Ho в пpoгнoз нe зaлoжeнa втopaя вoлнa COVID-19, кoтopaя, yвы, yжe нaчaлacь. (However, the forecast does not include the second wave of COVID-19, which has already begun.)

Швeдcкиe иccлeдoвaтeли дoпycкaют вcплecк зaбoлeвaeмocти нaпoдoбиe cлyчившeгocя пpoшлoй зимoй. (Swedish researchers expect a spike in the incidence of the disease, similar to what happened last winter.)

In these two examples, the pandemic and the prevalence of disease are compared to waves. The image of waves hitting the shore was associated with the idea of a cycle of pandemic damaging people’s lives. Compared to the Chinese and Russian texts, the metaphor of pandemic as war is less common in English, and more often used as a metaphor for “an object that is annoying and capable of striking and destroying,” for example:

The coronavirus pandemic has devastated the economy.

COVID struck the following March.

Sannan, whose condition affects his mobility, remembers being “glued to the television” when COVID hit the UK, trying to understand the restrictions and statistics.

These examples highlight the serious consequences of the pandemic through verbs and metaphorize the pandemic as a devastating event. Overall, in the Chinese and Russian corpora, the metaphor of war serves as the central metaphor that maximizes the severity of the pandemic. On the contrary, the English corpus gives negative connotations to the pandemic by creating an unpleasant image of it.

The analysis of pandemic-related texts in the three languages revealed the most relevant aspects in the context of each country. Chinese texts focus on the domestic situation, reflecting the country’s efforts and priorities to combat the pandemic at the local level. In turn, Russian and English media tend to discuss the global impact and underscore the importance of international cooperation and coordination to overcome the pandemic. These differences may influence the way countries perceive, respond to, and take measures against the epidemiological threat.

Discussion

The results of the etymological analysis suggest that the original meaning of the Chinese character for the word “pandemic” stems from a spiritual understanding of illnesses. The ancient Chinese believed that pandemics were created by ghosts and gods that compelled people to fall ill. This character is also related to the concepts of “beat” and “drive.” The English and Russian terms (pandemic/пaндeмия) denote the same phenomenon: a disease that spreads widely among the population. However, Chinese characters more precisely signify and differentiate concepts, revealing their inherent meanings in more detail.

The dictionary definitions of 疫/pandemic/пaндeмия are basically similar. In the modern Chinese dictionary, 疫(yi) means “pandemic, acute infectious disease,” while pandemic/пaндeмия can be interpreted as “epidemic or disease that spreads over a large area or to the entire nation, covering different regions and countries.” Accordingly, the word “pandemic” is used to refer to particularly large and widespread epidemics”. In the last 100 years, in China, pandemics have received more attention in the linguistic consciousness than in the United Kingdom and Russia.

The study analyzed linguistic data from mainstream media in the Chinese, English, and Russian languages. According to the number of reports and related information, the following conclusions can be drawn. During the four-year period from 2020 to 2023, there were approximately 68 times more reports in Chinese (15,971) than in English (234), and approximately 17 times more than in Russian (2,731). These figures clearly demonstrate China’s attention to the COVID-19 pandemic was significantly higher than that of Russia and the United Kingdom during this time period. China focuses on domestic outbreaks and implements more active and strict preventive measures such as isolation, containment, testing, tracking, and treatment. In contrast, the media in the United Kingdom and Russia tend to discuss the pandemic on the global scale. These countries adopt less strict pandemic control policies. That is, Russia and the United Kingdom are more concerned with the global implications of the pandemic, underscoring the significance of international collaboration and coordination in addressing it on all fronts. This may be due to the fact that China’s situation was more severe in the early stages of the outbreak and the Chinese government introduced radical measures, from policy to practice. Russia and the United Kingdom initially placed a strong emphasis on “herd immunity,” and Russia also exhibited a more lenient approach to the COVID-19 pandemic response. The analysis of pandemic-related texts in the three languages revealed the most important aspects of this issue for each of the countries in question. For China, the domestic aspects of the pandemic are critical, and the country demonstrates its efforts and priorities in combating the pandemic domestically. These discrepancies are evident in the countries’ perceptions, responses, and actions taken in the context of epidemiological threats.

The Chinese government's efforts to impose strict measures in response to the pandemic can be considered successful, as they are supported by a significant investment of both human and financial resources. For instance, the government has provided the population with access to free daily testing and accounting services for an extended period, as well as offering vaccines at no cost. Additionally, the general public has, in fact, demonstrated a relatively voluntary cooperation with measures such as home quarantine, regular testing, contact tracing, treatment, and other preventive and control measures. The level of compliance is closely linked to the idea of collectivism inherent in traditional Chinese culture. The reasons for this situation may be the specific characteristics of residential spaces. Thus, residential areas in China are often enclosed spaces, characterized by the presence of fences and gates, which facilitate the implementation of pandemic containment measures. English and Russian residents tend to prioritize their personal freedom. These factors make it more challenging to control the rapid spread of a pandemic. The Chinese approach emphasizes the overall process and rapid development of the pandemic, while Russians are more concerned about the “end” of the pandemic and future risks. The English focus is on the consequences of the pandemic and discussing the global spread from a spatial perspective.

Many studies conducted in the Russian, English, and Chinese languages underscore the critical nature of pandemics as a global health hazard. Regardless of the language used, it is universally acknowledged that pandemics constitute a serious problem affecting all nations and populations [51]. Russian-language studies may delve into the socio-economic consequences of a pandemic, including the impact on the economy, labor force, and social sphere, the daily life of the population, and even mental well-being. Conversely, Chinese-language research might emphasize the dynamics of the disease spread, control strategies, and government responses to the pandemic [52]. This divergence in focus may be attributed to distinct priorities and challenges perceived as the most pressing in different cultural contexts.

Differences in the perception of pandemic among Chinese, English, and Russian speakers are closely intertwined with the state policy, socio-economic situation, health care quality, living standards, national identity, and the collective consciousness of these societies. The findings of existing research on this topic may diverge in terms of methodology employed in the exploration of the matter. This study used a comparative analysis to examine how the concept of a pandemic is perceived and expressed in Eastern and Western cultures. The present investigation also employed word frequency analysis to identify words that are commonly associated with the word “pandemic” in different languages. Diachronic analysis provided valuable insights into how the perception and evolution of “pandemic” in different nations. In another study, which analyzed the German language, the term “pandemic” was defined as the global spread of an infectious disease. However, it is important to note that the national perception of the concept varies. In Germany, for instance, there is a particular focus on the role of healthcare, the functioning of the healthcare system, and the imposition of restrictions during a pandemic [53]. Simultaneously, historical aspects may be closely related to the perception and management of pandemics, particularly when considering Germany’s experience in overcoming previous crises. In Japanese, the term “パンデミック” (pandemikku) also refers to a global pandemic. In Japanese culture, it is of paramount importance to foster solidarity and mutual help during pandemics [54]. The traditions and values of Japanese society determine their attitudes towards health and social restrictions.

The term “pandemic” covers a wide range of dimensions associated with pandemics and pandemic diseases. It encompasses not only medical and healthcare aspects, but also the far-reaching effects on the social and economic well-being of society. The perception and understanding of the term are contingent upon historical and cultural contexts, as well as the current reality, which shapes the general perception of the danger and the society’s ability to cope with the protection of health in the event of the spread of disease. In comparison with similar studies, this investigation has both common and distinctive aspects regarding the analysis of the term “pandemic” in different languages and cultures. For example, the perception of a pandemic as a global health threat is a common theme in research conducted in Russian, English, and Chinese. This indicates that the pandemic is regarded as an important issue that affects all individuals, irrespective of their cultural background [55]. However, other studies may emphasize distinct facets of the pandemic, reflecting divergent national approaches and reinforcing alternative interpretations of the term. For example, some publications delve into the socio-economic impact of the pandemic from a Russian perspective, while others prioritize providing updates on the evolving statistics of COVID-19 cases in China [56].

This study explored how the concept of pandemics is perceived in Eastern and Western cultures. The findings from previous studies align with our research in terms of an emphasis on differences in the interpretation of the term in different cultures. The study also highlights the significance of historical and cultural contexts in shaping the understanding of the terms. However, previous research mainly focuses on a cross-cultural analysis without incorporating word frequency analysis or diachronic perspectives. This research investigates the evolution of the concept of pandemic by analyzing relevant texts in Chinese, Russian, and English. The diachronic approach of other scholars is similar to that of this study and shows how the term’s meaning has evolved over time. Nevertheless, the current literature lacks a comprehensive comparison of the modern linguistic consciousness in these languages, which is present in the current investigation. Additionally, the present study includes the frequency analysis of the term’s usage in different contexts, while previous research focuses solely on historical texts. Additionally, this study adopts a corpus-based approach to analyze the global impact of the term “pandemic” in Chinese, Russian, and English cultures. The present study complements the literature by discussing how the term is used in various contexts, including medicine, public health, and social effects. Moreover, through linguocultural concept analysis, this study delves into the cultural aspects that influence the representation of the concept in question. The divergent interpretations of the concept of pandemic in Chinese, English, and Russian cultures are intricately linked to the respective state policies, socioeconomic contexts, healthcare systems, living standards, national sentiments, and subjective consciousness of the populations.

Conclusions

The term “pandemic” was found to be a multifaceted concept that encompasses various dimensions, such as medical and public health aspects, social impacts, and economic implications. This wide scope demonstrates that the term extends beyond medical discourse and is deeply intertwined with the fabric of society’s well-being. Moreover, the study found that the understanding and perception of the word “pandemic” are intricately tied to the historical and cultural contexts of each language. The historical experiences and cultural values of a nation shape how the concept is perceived, interpreted, and addressed during the outbreak of a disease. Additionally, the contemporary reality and prevailing circumstances influence the general perception of danger and society’s capacity to respond to health-related challenges posed by a disease. The diachronic examination of the frequency of the word “pandemic” in Chinese, English, and Russian text corpora yielded valuable insights into the changing patterns of public reactions and internal perceptions of pandemics over time. The observed decline in its usage suggests evolving social attitudes towards pandemics and public health emergencies. This trend reflects how these societies have adapted their strategies and methodologies in the fight against infectious diseases, given the lessons, drawing upon the insights gained from past experiences and advancements in medical science and public health practices.

This research unveiled intriguing patterns in the linguistic consciousness surrounding the term “pandemic” across different languages. The varying emphases, contextual influences, and changing frequency of its usage indicate the complexity of this concept and its significance in responses to global health crises. The comprehensive system of analysis employed in this study revealed the core cultural values of three different nations. Thus, this study provides a multi-dimensional view of national mentality, personality, ideology, values, and spiritual realities, as well as cultural images and characteristics.

Research implications

The study has crucial implications for both scholarly comprehension and practical applications. Firstly, it is essential to acknowledge that the term “pandemic” is perceived and represented differently in various linguistic contexts, which impacts intercultural communication. The detailed knowledge of these differences may foster cross-cultural understanding during global health crises and enable effective communication between different language-speaking communities. On the other hand, the emphasis on global cooperation in Russian, English, and Chinese linguistic consciousness highlights the importance of international collaboration in managing and combating pandemics. These insights may guide international health organizations and governments during health emergencies. The concept of pandemic extends beyond medical aspects and encompasses social impacts. Policymakers can use the presented information to develop comprehensive public health policies that address medical, social, and economic consequences during pandemics. The analysis of how historical and cultural contexts influence the interpretation of the term broadens cross-cultural research and provides a nuanced view of national responses to health crises. Policymakers can tailor interventions and communication strategies that are not only culturally appropriate but also highly effective. The interdisciplinary approach employed in this study, which combines linguocultural concept analysis, word frequency analysis, and diachronic analysis, offers a valuable methodological foundation for studying linguistic consciousness. This methodology can be applied to explore other cultural concepts and enrich linguistic consciousness research. The diachronic analysis of the decline in the usage of the term “pandemic” demonstrated a shift in societal attitudes and perceptions. Policymakers can utilize this insight to assess public awareness and readiness for potential health crises, thereby enhancing related policies and strategies. On the other hand, this research has implications for language education and translation practices. By examining the cultural and contextual aspects of linguistic consciousness, the present investigation emphasizes the need for accurate and culturally relevant translations to ensure effective communication of vital health information across language barriers. In conclusion, this research has implications for effective communication, improved international health cooperation, informed public health policies, and enriched studies on linguistic consciousness.

Annotated description

The original text material of the corpus of news reports related to the 疫情/pandemic/пандемия in the mainstream media in Chinese (People’s Daily Online), English (BBC), and Russian (TASS) has been provided separately.

Authors’ contributions

Yanlei Ge: conceptualization, methodology, software, validation, formal analysis, investigation, resources, data curation, writing-original draft preparation, writing-review and editing, visualization, supervision, project administration.

Funding

This research was supported by the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences (Grant 21WYYB 007).

Data availability

The data are available within the article.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Not applicable.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The research has no conflict of interest.